Currently, recording of television programs by individuals for viewing at a later time, is generally performed using commercially available Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs). Typically, a VCR may be either manually placed into a record mode or may be programmed to record a selected program at a later time. To program the VCR, the user either enters a date, time and channel of the program desired to be recorded, or enters an identification code of the desired program.
Viewers of television programming increasingly have more choices as to which programs to view. For example, cable television provides a dramatic increase in the number of channels available to a viewer in comparison to the channels available by way of a conventional television antenna. Digital satellite systems provide even more viewing choices. Digital broadcast of programs over cable television systems is expected to further increase the number of channels available to viewers.
One effect of the increase in the number of viewing choices is increased difficulty in deciding which programs to watch. People, particularly those with busy schedules, may not have the time to select and view programs to determine which programs they may or may not like. Programs that may otherwise be desirable to a viewer may never be watched if the program is broadcast at a time that is inconvenient for the viewer. Users may select certain programs for viewing to determine if they like the program. However, with several hundred program selections each week, this task can take a considerable amount of time and is likely to cause certain desirable programs to be overlooked.
There are companies who sample television-viewing habits of the population by monitoring the programs watched by a very small set of TV viewers. These companies collect other demographic information also about the people they monitor for the generation of the sample. These samples give valuable information about the television viewing habits of the population covered by the sample. By analyzing these samples periodically a general mathematical model can be formed which explains the behavioral patterns of the population in television viewing. Each individual viewer would have a very personal liking for television programs which may vary considerably from a model derived from the sample behaviors of general population. At the same time a mathematical model derived by monitoring the behavior of a single user may be inaccurate because of the limited amount of information which can be gathered by watching only a single user for a short period of time. Sending the entire sample of behavioral pattern of the sample population to every viewer device to aid computation of the mathematical model is counter-productive because of the high cost of bandwidth required to transmit this information to each device and the processing power and memory requirement for the viewer device to process this information. Sending personal viewing habits of every user to a server to compute the mathematical model for the individual user would raise privacy concerns for the viewer and also requires a return channel from the viewer device to the server.
With a mechanism to automatically determine personal preferences of a viewer accurately, a very personal TV viewing environment can be presented to the viewer. In case of households with multiple members, by correctly identifying individual members and their preferences, an apparatus can provide an entertainment experience which is most pleasurable to the individual viewer.
Methods have been developed for providing text data to viewers. A closed captioned encoding technique transmits text data in synchronization with its associated video data by inserting the closed captioned text data into a vertical blanking interval of the video signal. However, the closed captioned text data must be inserted into the vertical blanking interval of the video signal by the producer of the video programming. As a result, the vertical blanking interval of the video signal cannot be used by the head end operator to insert other text data such as sports, weather, stock market, news, advertising and other data.
Electronic program guides (hereafter “EPG”) provides viewers with on-screen listings of upcoming television programs on cable television channels. The EPG is provided by an EPG data service. EPG data is converted into a video signal at the cable head. The EPG data is converted into a video signal at the cable head and transmitted to the viewer's television by a dedicated cable television channel. After tuning to the dedicated cable television channel, the viewer then wait for the programming for the desired time period is displayed. Often, when EPG data is used, the cable head end operator must dedicate a separate cable television channel to the EPG data and create video signals from the EPG data that are provided by the EPG service providers.
The introduction of digital cable promises to further expand the range of TV services well beyond current offerings. Interactive TV (IT) is expected to offer a hybrid incorporating the ease-of-use of conventional television combined with the interactivity and added functionality of the Internet. In addition to purchasing viewing content, viewers will likely be able to purchase goods and services, and offer feedback regarding various topics including viewing content (e.g. rate a movie or show), items offered for purchase, political candidates engaged in a debate, contestants in a talent show, etc. Conventional content such as educational programs and advertisements may also benefit from IT. For instance, advertisements may provide viewers different choices, such as model type or color, among which the viewers would be prompted to make a particular selection. Depending upon the viewers selection, the advertisement could run along different paths, showing different scenes and presenting additional choices. Further, the viewer may also be able to request additional information, and may be presented with special offers and/or coupons, or be alerted to special sales going on at near-by dealers and distributors.
It is therefore likely that IT will impact the delivery of content to the viewer such that conventional scheduling will no longer be appropriate. For instance, in conventional television systems, content is broadcast in a linear manner, interspersed with advertisements at regularly scheduled intervals. However, within an IT system, a viewer may or may not choose to interact with a certain program or advertisement, or may interact only to a certain level, thus actively changing the length of the video segment (be it program or advertisement) being viewed. This will in turn impact the delivery of subsequent advertisements and programs, and the IT system should be able to adjust delivery accordingly.
If the IT system cannot delay or advance the delivery of content so as to accommodate the viewers interaction with certain viewing segments, viewers may be reluctant or unwilling to use such interactive features. For instance, if interacting with an advertisement would force the viewer to miss the first minute or two of the program she is currently watching, it is very unlikely that the viewer would choose to interact at all. Similarly, if interaction with one advertisement would partially or completely bypass the presentation of the following advertisement being broadcast, the advertiser paying for the broadcast of the second, obscured advertisement would be negatively impacted and billing the advertiser would have to be somehow adjusted.
Thus, a potential problem with IT can be summarized as consisting of lost content, whereby interaction with a video segment may cause the viewer to bypass, or miss, viewing one or more other video segments.
A possible solution to the problem is to disallow the switch to the interactive environment unless the viewer first engages a Pause function. Such a Pause function may be provided by a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) integrated with the IT system. An essential feature of PVRs is high capacity program storage, such as may be provided by a hard drive or other equivalent, high-capacity information storage system or device. Typically, PVRs continuously record all programs being watched, and thus allow the programs to be paused while the viewer needs to pay attention to other tasks and then replayed and viewed later via the storage.
Thus, engaging the Pause function causes further program video information being delivered to the TV set to be cached and the viewed programming frozen. The viewer could then launch the interactive environment for use. Once the viewer has finished interacting with the particular interactive video segment, she may close the interactive environment and toggle the PVR Pause to continue watching the TV programming from where she left off. However, this solution involves many control functions that must be engaged by the viewer, and can thus be inconvenient to the viewer.